He smiled. «That’s nice. Kind of crazy, but fair. What do you want to study?»

«Social work, maybe. Or counseling. I keep thinking about all the people I met when I was homeless, people who’d fallen through the cracks the way I did. Maybe I could help.»

«You’d be good at that,» Logan said. «You understand what it’s like to lose everything.»

«And to find it again,» I added.

We sat in comfortable silence for a while, drinking our coffee and reading the newspaper like brothers do. Like we probably used to do before everything went wrong.

«Logan,» I said eventually.

«Yeah?»

«Thank you. For never giving up. For keeping looking even when it seemed hopeless.»

«You don’t have to thank me for that. You’re my brother. That’s what brothers do.»

«Still, I know it cost you. The time, the money, the emotional energy. You could have moved on, started your own family, lived your own life.»

Logan was quiet for a moment. «Can I tell you something? I did try to move on. A few times. I’d meet someone, start dating, think maybe I could build a life that didn’t revolve around searching for you. But it never worked.»

«Why not?»

«Because there was always this piece missing. This sense that my family wasn’t complete. I couldn’t commit to building something new when I hadn’t finished grieving what I’d lost. And now, I can,» he said simply. «Now I know you’re safe. You’re alive. You’re going to be okay. Now I can think about the future instead of being stuck in the past.»

I reached across the table and squeezed his shoulder. «I’m glad you found me.»

«I’m glad you let yourself be found.»

Later that afternoon, I drove my taxi, which I’d kept partly for sentimental reasons and partly because I wasn’t quite ready to give up the independence it represented, to the cemetery where our parents were buried. I’d been visiting them regularly, talking to the headstones like they could hear me, telling them about their sons and the life we were building together.

«I got my GED study guide,» I told them, sitting cross-legged on the grass between their graves. «Logan thinks I’m crazy for wanting to start over at 42, but I figure it’s better than starting over at 82.» The wind rustled through the trees, and for a moment, I could almost hear my mother’s voice, the one from my dreams, telling me she was proud.

«I wish I could remember you better,» I said, «but Logan tells me stories, and sometimes it feels like remembering. He says Mom used to sing while she cooked, and Dad taught us both how to change a tire when I was 12. He says you never gave up looking for me, even when the police said I was probably dead.»

A couple walked by, holding hands, visiting their own family. I nodded to them, part of the community of people who talk to the dead because the living don’t always understand.

«I’m going to be okay,» I told my parents. «We both are. Logan found me, and I found him, and maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s everything.»

As I drove home, I thought about the strange mathematics of loss and recovery, about how 25 years of searching could be resolved by a glitchy ride-share app and a taxi driver who happened to look like someone’s missing brother. I thought about Carl Brennan, who’d carried his secret to his deathbed, and about the son who’d finally found the courage to tell the truth. Mostly, I thought about Logan, who’d spent half his life looking for me.

My phone buzzed with a text from him: «Dinner tomorrow? I’m making Mom’s spaghetti recipe. Fair warning, I’m not as good at it as she was.»

I texted back, «I’ll bring dessert.»

«Thanks for coming back,» he replied.

I pulled into my parking space, looked up at the windows of my apartment—my home—and felt something I hadn’t felt in 25 years, like I belonged somewhere. Like I was someone’s brother, someone’s family, someone worth searching for. The taxi driver who’d been sleeping in his car was gone. In his place was Ezra Westfield, a man with a past and a future and a brother who’d never stopped believing he was worth finding.

Sometimes the best journeys are the ones that bring you back to where you started: to the family you thought you’d lost, to the name you were always meant to carry. A powerful story about never giving up hope and the unbreakable bonds of family.